Middle of the Night Mishap

Christopher, 22 months, has decided that he is as mature as his older brothers who are almost 4 and 5. As a result, he has graduated from a crib and now sleeps in the bottom of the bunkbed by himself without rails or anything. He's been doing very, very well with this new "independence", I must say! He doesn't climb out of bed after going down for his nap or for the night. He doesn't play around in there. He does what every dream child should be doing in bed ... sleeping!

As I said, he has been doing well for the past several weeks, until last night! I woke up around 3:30 or so to Christopher screaming. I went into the boys' room to see what the problem was, but Christopher wasn't in his bed! I could hear him crying (screaming, rather), but the room was dark and I couldn't quite see what was going on. I thought maybe he had fallen out of bed so I got down on my knees to pick him up. Hmmm. Still no Christopher. Still lots of screaming.

In my half-asleep stupor, I could tell that the crying was coming from someplace low, but I just couldn't see him. I finally clued in that the screaming was coming from UNDER the bunkbed. ?!?!?!?!?! Even after lying flat on the floor and trying to scoot under the bed with only a 10" opening, I found him shoved way back into the corner, not sure which way was out anymore. I felt like I was rescuing a cat from under that bed as I kept groping for him in the dark and eventually pulled him across the floor to safety.

Christopher was so funny. As soon as he was out from under the bed, I tried to hug him for comfort, thinking that he would want Mommy's reassurance that all was well, but no. He pulled away from me and climbed back into his beloved bottom bunk and promptly went back to sleep.

Yep. That's my big boy, Christopher. Give him a bit of independence and not even a hug from Mommy is necessary. Good thing he still loves to cuddle when he's awake!